Canonical sell support for Ubuntu. But their service level agreements merely state A full list of supported packages for each release is provided upon request.
Does anyone know offhand if Perl is in Ubuntu's list? And if so, what other CPAN modules that they package? I'm curious, but I'm not going to spin a yarn about being interested in buying something from them just to get to the point of finding out.
Red Hat, in contrast, are much clearer:
If we ship it, we... support
- Installation
- Usage
- Configuration
- Diagnosis
- Bug fixes (dependent on Product Life Cycle)
... and that's they seem to ship less CPAN modules every release.
Re:There's a downside to Red Hat's way...
nicholas on 2008-12-24T09:12:53
Yes, but for those that they do ship, you get support! Isn't that good?
:-) Whereas Ubuntu may (or may not) be supporting any of the plethora that the ship. Which was why I was curious as to whether anyone knew what Ubuntu say that they support.
When I look in Synaptic Package Manager and select the "perl" package (which has an ubuntu icon next to the checkbox), at the bottom it says "Canonical provides critical updates for perl until May 2010". It says that about other packages like "ubuntu-desktop". Note: ubuntu releases every six months, so presumably updates then. (I just had an update (in intrepid) to perl's package today.)
I'm not sure how best to go about finding which CPAN modules there are. My attempt used `dpkg -l '*-perl' |cut -d " " -f 3`:
libalgorithm-annotate-perl
libalgorithm-diff-perl
libansicolor-perl
libapache -mod-perl
libapache2-reload-perl
libapache2-request-perl
libapp-cli-perl
lib apparmor-perl
libappconfig-perl
libapt-pkg-perl
libarchive-tar-perl
libarchi ve-zip-perl
libattribute-handlers-perl
libaudio-flac-header-perl
libauthen-sa sl-perl
libbsd-resource-perl
libcache-perl
libcairo-perl
libcgi-pm-perl
lib class-accessor-chained-perl
libclass-accessor-perl
libclass-autouse-perl
libc lass-data-inheritable-perl
libclass-errorhandler-perl
libclass-multimethods-pe rl
libclass-singleton-perl
libcompress-raw-zlib-perl
libcompress-zlib-perll ibconfig-file-perl
libconfig-inifiles-perl
libconfigfile-perl
libcpan-plus-pe rl
libcrypt-dh-perl
libcrypt-ssleay-perl
libdata-hierarchy-perl
libdata-page -perl
libdate-manip-perl
libdatetime-format-mail-perl
libdatetime-format-w3cd tf-perl
libdatetime-locale-perl
libdatetime-perl
libdatetime-timezone-perll ibdbd-mysql-perl
libdbd-pg-perl
libdbd-sybase-perl
libdbi-perl
libdevel-symd ump-perl
libdigest-hmac-perl
libdigest-md5-perl
libdigest-sha-perl
libdigest -sha1-perl
libextutils-autoinstall-perl
libextutils-cbuilder-perl
libfeed-fin d-perl
libfile-basedir-perl
libfile-chdir-perl
libfile-desktopentry-perl
lib file-spec-perl
libfile-temp-perl
libfile-type-perl
libfile-which-perl
libfre ezethaw-perl
libft-perl
libgd-gd1-noxpm-perl
libgd-gd1-perl
libgd-gd2-noxpm- perl
libgd-gd2-perl
libgd-gd2-xpm-perl
libgd-graph-perl
libgd-noxpm-perl
li bgd-perl
libgd-text-perl
libgimp-perl
libglib-perl
libgnome2-canvas-perl
li bgnome2-perl
libgnome2-vfs-perl
libgssapi-perl
libgtk2-perl
libhtml-format-p erl
libhtml-parser-perl
libhtml-tagset-perl
libhtml-template-perl
libhtml-tr ee-perl
libi18n-langtags-perl
libimage-magick-perl
libinline-perl
libio-comp ress-base-perl
libio-compress-zlib-perl
libio-digest-perl
libio-multiplex-per l
libio-pty-perl
libio-socket-ssl-perl
libio-string-perl
libio-stringy-perl
libio-tty-perl
libio-zlib-perl
libipc-run-perl
libipc-sharedcache-perl
libl ist-moreutils-perl
liblocale-codes-perl
liblocale-gettext-perl
liblocale-make text-lexicon-perl
liblocale-maketext-perl
liblocale-maketext-simple-perl
libl wp-authen-wsse-perl
libmail-box-perl
libmail-sendmail-perl
libmail-spf-query- perl
libmailtools-perl
libmath-bigint-perl
libmime-base64-perl
libmldbm-perl
libmodule-build-perl
libmodule-corelist-perl
libmodule-load-conditional-perl
libmodule-load-perl
libmodule-pluggable-perl
libmp3-info-perl
libmpeg-mp3in fo-perl
libnet-cidr-perl
libnet-daemon-perl
libnet-dbus-perl
libnet-google-p erl
libnet-irc-perl
libnet-ldap-perl
libnet-perl
libnet-ping-perl
libnet-se rver-perl
libnet-smtp-ssl-perl
libnet-snmp-perl
libnet-ssleay-perl
libogg-vo rbis-header-perl
libossp-uuid-perl
libparams-check-perl
libparams-validate-pe rl
libparse-debcontrol-perl
libparse-debianchangelog-perl
libparse-recdescent -perl
libpath-class-perl
libpathtools-perl
libperlio-eol-perl
libperlio-via- dynamic-perl
libperlio-via-symlink-perl
libplrpc-perl
libpod-coverage-perll ibpod-escapes-perl
libpod-parser-perl
libpod-simple-perl
libqt-perl
librpc-x ml-perl
librrds-perl
libscalar-list-utils-perl
libsdl-perl
libsoap-lite-perl
libsort-versions-perl
libstorable-perl
libsvn-core-perl
libsvn-mirror-perl
libsvn-perl
libsvn-simple-perl
libtemplate-perl
libtemplate-plugin-gd-perl
libtemplate-stash-perl
libterm-readkey-perl
libterm-readline-gnu-perl
libterm -readline-perl-perl
libterm-size-perl
libtest-harness-perl
libtest-pod-perl
libtest-simple-perl
libtext-aspell-perl
libtext-charwidth-perl
libtext-iconv- perl
libtext-template-perl
libtext-wrapi18n-perl
libtie-ixhash-perl
libtime- hires-perl
libtime-piece-perl
libtimedate-perl
libtk-perl
libtk-png-perl
li bunicode-map8-perl
libunicode-string-perl
libuniversal-exports-perl
libuniver sal-require-perl
liburi-fetch-perl
liburi-perl
liburi-template-perl
libuuid- perl
libvcp-dest-svk-perl
libvcp-perl
libversion-perl
libwww-opensearch-perl
libwww-perl
libx11-protocol-perl
libxml-atom-perl
libxml-feed-perl
libxml- filter-buffertext-perl
libxml-filter-xslt-perl
libxml-grove-perl
libxml-libxm l-common-perl
libxml-libxml-perl
libxml-libxslt-perl
libxml-namespacesupport- perl
libxml-parser-perl
libxml-perl
libxml-rss-perl
libxml-sax-expat-perll ibxml-sax-perl
libxml-sax-writer-perl
libxml-simple-perl
libxml-twig-perl
li bxml-xpath-perl
libxml-xql-perl
libxsloader-perl
libyaml-syck-perl
templatet oolkit-perl
Re:perl is supported
nicholas on 2008-12-29T10:15:15
Aha. I use the command line package tools so didn't think of looking there. On this Ubuntu 8.04 Synaptic Package Manager is not helpful enough to tell me that, nor does it offer any clue (such as a mouse over tooltip) on what the untitled column with an Ubuntu icon means. I have to look through all the menu options to find "Icon Legend" on the Help menu, which brings up a dialogue that explains them. At which point I find out that this icon means "supported", but nowhere does it say how long for.
However, I can then cross reference this with some digging on the Ubuntu website - 8.04 Desktop seems to be supported until 2011, and Server until 2013.
So that's cool - if you pay them, Canonical will be providing Perl 5.8.x support until 2013. Except, it seems, that it's only for critical bugs, and those are the sort that I'd rather like to learn about before they are part of a coordinated security update from Linux distributions.
